We've done a couple of brief trips over the past weeks.
First up, we took mum down to Adelaide for a stay with my cousin Nichola and her family. Nichola and Neil have made the perfect life for themselves over the 8 years they've been out here. They have a large open house with the obligatory swimming pool out back, set in a large garden. We were staying in Gawler on the border of the Barossa valley, the biggest (and ? best) of the wine regions in Oz. We had to oblige. We spent the day calling into one cellar door after another, Nichola was graciously driving so the rest of us got progressively 'relaxed' - shall we say. Another highlight was an evening barbecue. This was the biggest one we've yet been to here but ironically was composed of Brits only. It was very much the expat experience for us, we sat around by the pool into the evening reminiscing about home and putting the world to rights. I say the world, it was more about putting Australia to rights in truth. If only they'd listen to us we could fix their country for them! At the end of the stay we sent Mum off back to the UK while Ros and I spent a few hours exploring the city before heading back to Sydney. There's a very pleasant University/Museum quarter by the River Torrens - felt quite European in fact.
Last weekend I joined Ros in Perth where she'd spent the week at a conference. Perth is over 5 hours from Sydney and we reflected on the fact that in Europe such a flight would take you to Moscow. Would we consider flying to Moscow from the UK for a weekend? We haven't in the past but perhaps that will be something we'll take home with us - a more open mind about travel?
We were very much impressed by Perth, helped by the fact that the weather was near perfect. Given that we were limited on time we took a couple of coach tours into the surrounding area. It's such a beautiful and diverse area with rivers, rolling vineyards, wide open seascapes, dense Eucalypt forests, massive sand dunes and spooky deserts!! We spent a couple of days sampling all of the above. The last day we kicked back and stayed in the city, taking a train to a suburb at the mouth of the Swan River and returned by ferry. We even saw a couple of dolphin pods from the boat. The locals took the sightings in their stride, it's obviously a common occurrence - lucky them!
We're back to the routine of work now but have set an end date (at work etc) so we're now very much in the final phase of our stay. Niall is in a similar position as he's also finished his sales job and sets off for New Zealand at the weekend - his final phase (or perhaps the start of the next one?)
